Traditionally, putting sugar in a gas tank is an act of treachery
reserved only for ones enemies. Now, researchers are putting a new useful
spin on a mean old trick by suggesting that renewable, clean-burning sugar derivatives
might someday help replace liquid fossil fuels such as gasoline.

Ethanol has traditionally been the biofuel of choice, but it has its problems
 one of which is that it is not very efficient compared to gasoline and
other petroleum-based fuels. So researchers are trying to make ethanol more
efficient, or to find new, better fuels.

And thats just what James Dumesic, a chemical engineer at the University
of Wisconsin at Madison, and colleagues have done. They discovered a new method
for obtaining combustible, energy-rich dimethylfuran (DMF) from fructose, a
simple sugar found in plants ranging from parsnips to peaches.

Compared to ethanol, DMF is a fuel more energy-dense by 40 percent, with a higher
boiling point, and is not soluble in water, Dumesic and colleagues wrote in
an article published June 21 in Nature.